Posts Tagged With: Christmas

MerryChristmas!

I was fortunate that both of my sets of grandparents lived in the same small town, a few hours away from my childhood home. Every Christmas included a visit with both sides of the family in a grand two- or three-day holiday. The celebrations with each family couldn’t be more different. Christmas with my mother’s family was loud with laughter and stories. There was always an endless game of road hockey, and some of the best cooking you ever would have. I enjoyed our Christmas visits with my dad’s family just as much but the traditions were very different. My grandfather would hold court in his living room around a warm fire, where all were invited to solve the world’s problems with appropriately conservative answers. We children would escape to the basement to shoot pool until we grew old enough to have opinions we could support. To this day, though, what I remember most was that my grandfather always had classical music playing. Royal Canadian Brass. The Boston Pops. Handel’s “Messiah.” When my grandfather passed away last year I was given a nut-bowl I had turned him in the seventh grade in woodshop, and a collection of CDs he used to play at Christmas.

George Friedric Handel

Arguably the most popular part of George Friedric Handel’s “Messiah” is the “Hallelujah Chorus.” Handel set the music in 1741 and his friend Charles Jennens provided the lines of verse. Interestingly, the three most famous lines of the “Hallelujah Chorus” come from Revelation, and two are found in today’s passage:

Alleluia! The Lord our God, the Almighty, has become king [reigneth]! (19:6)

On his robe, and on his thigh, is written a name: King of kings, and Lord of lords. (19:16)

Now the kingdom of the world has passed to our Lord and his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever. (11:15)

Amidst the oracles of doom and judgement, the grotesque beast and powerful celestial beings, it is immensely fitting that the fall of Rome ends with the flourish of praise to Christ the Victor we find running throughout this passage.

I enjoyed solving the problems of the world in my grandfather’s living room sipping apple cider and listening to Handel. I am infinitely more thankful that there is a white rider with a blood-drenched robe who truly can right the world again. No beast or false prophet can stand against him. And that is worth a lifetime’s chorus of “Hallelujahs.”

A mighty angel comes on to the scene and shouts a death notice for Rome:

Babylon the Great has fallen! She has fallen! (18:2)

He also makes one last call to God’s people to be a separate people until the end. We are reminded that holiness is one of the main themes of Revelation:

Come out of here, my people, so that you don’t become embroiled in her sins, and so that you don’t receive any of her plagues. (18:4)

Judgment has come to this wicked woman who thought no harm would come to her, that no one would hold her accountable for her behavior, even the buying and selling of humans (18:13). But she will be paid back double (18:6).

To be sure, Rome’s fall is lamented. But not for the reasons we might expect.

The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, because nobody will buy their cargo anymore. (18:11)

“Alas, alas,” they said, “the great city! Everyone who had ships on the sea could get rich from her wealth, but in a single hour she has become a desert.” (18:19).

The merchants and mariners who cry over Rome’s demise are really crying for themselves. They care about only to the degree it affects them. They are broken up over their loss of business. Not exactly compassion now, is it?

Power intimidates. Power can produce great respect. Power might even engender admiration. But power is not the recipe for loyalty, sacrificial kinship, or even love. When power wanes, so too do the alliances that power brought. Rome only knew how to operate by power. The kingdom of the Lamb is the dominion of love.

Tonight is Christmas Eve. My family has made a bunch to trips to Target and Sam’s Club and the grocery store the past few days. I am thankful those businesses exist. As much driving as many of us do around the holidays, I am glad the big oil companies exist. I look forward to sitting down tonight in peace and order and even a reasonable level of affluence, and I know that I have the sacrifices of soldiers and the tireless hours of civil servants to thank. But when I sit down tonight it will be with my family whom I love. Maybe my family of faith too at a nearby Christmas Eve service. Tomorrow my family will enjoy each other’s presence and we will make time to celebrate the birth of the Lamb. Love breeds love, not power.

It is a little surreal reading this classic Christmas chapter on June 28 when it is above 90 degrees F in Memphis!

I was drawn to this passage today as I read:

“Don’t be afraid,” the angel said to them [the shepherds]. “Look: I’ve got good news for you, news which will make everybody very happy. Today a savior has been born for you–the Messiah, the Lord!–in David’s town. This will be a sign for you: you’ll find the baby wrapped up, and lying in a feeding-trough.” (2:10-12).

The sign the angel is talking about, no doubt, was that Jesus was to be found swaddled and in a manger. That would have been the clear sign the shepherds could use to find Jesus. What other newborn in Bethlehem would have been found in a cattle trough?

But I am wondering if there is more meaning to this passage than the literal. This is a very unorthodox place for the Messiah to be laid. This is not how a king should be born and laid to receive his admirers. And these are strange people to pick to tell first about the birth; shepherds were second class citizens or less.

Is that maybe part of the sign? Is this a sign of what kind of king this would be? An indication of what sort of ministry this savior will have and to whom he will minister primarily? A hint that he will be a much meeker, socially marginalized savior than expected, one better suited for shepherds and innkeepers? That would certainly fit what we know about Luke’s concern for the disenfranchised of his society. But it might still fit today, don’t you think?

Who are the people in your world who can better identify with a savior in a feeding-trough than a bassinet?